Jayne Garcia Valseca - We Have Your Husband: One Womans Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico

Table of Contents

This book is dedicated to Eduardo and my childrenFernando, Emiliano, and Nayahand to all the families who go through what we did. May your loved ones make it home safely.

My husbands kidnapping and all that followed was one of the most challenging times of my life. I could not have gotten through it without the help and support of my family and close friends. Eduardo, my soul mate: I thank you for giving me strength and unwavering encouragement in my most desperate moments. Thank you for your contagious love of life that makes my every day a fiesta! I adore you.

Cielo, Leti, and Verita, you were my absolute pillars. I could never have made it through this without you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul.

Mom, you have always been there for me in the best of times and the worst with your unconditional love and support. I love you.

My father, Dalbert Rager: Although you are no longer with me in the flesh, you are with me always. Thank you for the wisdom you shared with me in life.

Fernando, Emiliano, and Nayah, you are my life. You brought smiles to my face when I thought my face couldnt smile anymore. There is no possible way I could have made it through all of this had it not been for the joy you instill in me. You give me strength, fill my life with light, and are my inspiration for being.

My dear brother, John Rager, I will never forget you offering me everything you had and crying with me on the phone. I love you, little brother.

The gratitude that I feel for those individuals who loaned me what I needed to pay the ransom is beyond words. Although I will not mention you by name, I want you to know that for as long as I live, I will never forget what you did.

Thank you to Lupe, Uncle Ted, and John Robert Garman for sharing your wisdom and support, as always.

Thank you to Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan for your valuable guidance in my moment of crisis and the inspiration and encouragement to write this book.

A special thank-you to Barbara Feinman Todd for the time, wisdom, and experience you so generously shared with me, and for telling me that my story needed to be told.

Thank you to David Montgomery, Kira Zalan, and Carol Gable for your outstanding work in journalism, telling the stories that change the world.

My sincerest thanks to Michael Wright, Joel Gotler, and Laura Dail for making this book a reality.

Thank you to Mr. Richard Stephenson of Cancer Treatment Centers of America, the man who created the place that helped me to heal on every level when I was told by others that I may never get well.

My deepest gratitude to Dr. Michael Barry, the man who taught me about forgiveness. It was you, Wendell Scanterbury, and your team who brought me to my turning point. Thank you to Dr. Les Darroff for treating us even when you were no longer on the clock. If it were not for you, I would have never found the strength and courage to use my voice.

Thank you to Cindy and Mark Ross for providing guidance and rooms with views in which to write. Camp Ross will always be our favorite destination.

Thank you to Ruth and Max Suberi for so generously sharing your frequent-flier miles with us.

Thank you to Kris Carr. You inspired me to find healing when all I could see was a deep, dark hole in the ground, waiting for me to get in it.

Mark Ebner, it is an honor to know you and to have had the opportunity to write with you. Thank you for the support, encouragement, and friendship. There is so much of your own heart in this book, and I cant thank you enough. A special thank you to Paul Cullum as well.

I would also like to express my profound thanks to the people of San Miguel de Allende and around the world who have prayed for us, lit candles for us, and held my family in their thoughts throughout our time of pain and crisis. So many came to my aid, and did so selflessly. Thank you to Glenn Davis, Jennifer Grega, Aidan Lines, Jorge Septien, the late Felix Batista, Michael and Erika French, Judith Tomamichel, Elsanne Barrows, Dr. Beverly Nelson, Ivy Ana, Eduardo Morales, Cofe Fiakpui, Raul, Cal, Greywolf, Jim and Vicky Flood, Arturo Vidales, Jacqueline Farrington, Richard Leet, Lynn James, Meriget and James Turner, Mr. and Mrs. Don Bosie and everyone at Unisono, Iaki Garcia Gioricelaya, Rafael Loret de Mola, Lucy Nuez Zavala, Javier Zavala, Alma and Luis Alberto Villarreal and the entire Villarreal family.

Mark Ebner thanks Paul Cullum, Wendy Loo, Jenny Pool, Elizabeth Schwartz, Joel Gotler, Laura Dail, Lisa Ullmann, Lisa Derrick, Cat Noel, Mr. Bruce, and Dexter.

What would you do if the sky fell? If the moon became unhinged and crashed to the earth around you? Everyonemothers and fathers, husbands and wives, caretakers and providershas their plans and contingencies, but no one really knows how theyll react when the most fundamental things in life are suddenly called into question, or what strengths theyll find in reserve. A shift of weight, a sudden stillness in the air, a momentary sound or flash, and then its upon them. The best they can do is act on instinct and try to get out from under.

This is how it happened for me.

I was thirty-six years old and living a charmed life. Married to a man eighteen years my senior, a storybook romance that had brought me to the most beautiful place in the worldSan Miguel de Allende, in the high desert of central MexicoI was living a dream. I had just given birth to my third child, my daughter Nayah, a strong-willed spitfire who even later, at ten months old, would let me know exactly the way she liked for things to be. My other two childrenFernando, seven, my charmer, and Emiliano, one and a half, whose heart I feared would burst sometimes, so much did he seem to carewere both great kids, and every day they filled me with a mixture of pride and awe that these little engines of exuberance could have come from me. After two decades in Mexico, my love affair with my husband had expanded to include my adopted home, the land of his birth, and through his eyes I saw its spectral wonders, its incandescent pleasures and fusillades of color and flavor, and learned to cherish them as my own. We had good friends and a beautiful ninety-acre ranch on the outskirts of town where we grew alfalfa and raised horses, with a natural hot springs and a Chichimeca ruin just down the hill. It was a postcard existence, a movie poster, a travel brochurethe retirement you imagine for yourself at the end of your life, except that I was still relatively young, and we were all discovering it together.

The first sign that something was wrong was when Nayah refused to nurse on one side. Six months after that, I developed an acute pain and then a lump in the breast she rejected. My doctor assured me it was nothingeven after I went back to him ten months later with what seemed like a low-grade infection. A standard mammogram turned up nothing. When I went to see him the third time, my lymph nodes throbbing, I could see his face turn red during the examination. I immediately got on a plane to the Washington, D.C., area where doctors at the hospital diagnosed me with inflammatory breast cancer. Although my mother had breast cancer, I led what I considered a healthy lifestyle: I exercised, did yoga, kept an organic garden, and was very discerning about my diet. It just never seemed like a possibility to me.